The Sexy Brutale (2017)

In spite of a late start this year, I’ve now managed to pull three games down from their lofty Unbeaten towers! The Sexy Brutale, released in mid-2017, has a Groundhog Day sort of mechanic where you relive the events of the day many times over the course of the game. The name and thumbnail image of this game fittingly channel imagery of wealth, excess, and malevolence; however, the brutality is cartoonish and the sexiness is nearly all in the architecture and designs.

Your goal is to prevent the deaths of the eponymous mansion’s guests, one (or two) at a time. And also remain unseen, although the penalty for being spotted is simply spooky and harmless, and not anything like a stealth mechanic. I was disheartened to find that once you’ve saved someone, they neither remain saved, nor are you “allowed” to re-save their lives when the day restarts. But, you do get to access additional areas of the mansion in order to save someone new. The mansion is actually quite large. You can easily begin to feel lost in it, but the game usually does a good job of keeping you on track, and the rooms and areas are all unique enough that you can reacquire your bearings fairly easily by wandering through random doors.

The puzzles are generally simple, and the collectibles can be acquired along the way and even (kindly) completed after you’ve seen the ending. I had to look up one tip for finding one of the last-to-die-guest’s invitations to confirm my suspicions rather than waste time seeing if it would work, but most things are cleverly straightforward. From overhearing some of the guests conversations, I feel like it likely went through sufficient play testing to make some of the puzzles even simpler than they were originally.

The pacing is interesting… it always felt like a long play session when I was done, but typically it was only two or fewer hours at a time, which I don’t consider to be a long session. In that way, it didn’t feel short (although it is), nor did it overstay its welcome. I was done with the main story at eight hours in, and took another two to finish off the achievements. I wish the main character moved very slightly faster, but with the specific gameplay involved here, I can understand why that isn’t the case.

There are some rough edges and missed opportunities though. The character designs and animations, while perfectly sufficient, somehow feel a bit amateur. And there is an expectation near the ending (a handful of threads on the Steam forums agree with me) that didn’t happen, and would’ve been brilliant – I still hope they patch that in somehow, but it would take a lot of work. If this had been released ten years earlier, I’m certain it would have been highly lauded. Now, I’d consider it a gem (not a diamond, but a ruby or an emerald) in the rough. Plus, the music is great – it has an upbeat sort of 1920s feel. I found myself whistling the main theme after each session, and there’s even some well-voiced singing bits that run alongside the story.

After a Star Deal on Fanatical really brought the game to my attention, the December Humble Monthly decided it was time I own it, and I feel it was well worth taking the time to play through The Sexy Brutale’s day again and again… and again… and…